The above photos are optical tests. Stay tuned for more images! The video below will show what our live view feature will look like.

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Hiuni Live View Demo - Andrew provides some insight on how Hiuni's live view feature works.

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Behind the Scenes with Hiuni - Check out the above video for a walkthrough of our offices as the team prepared to demo our prototype at CES in Las Vegas this January.

Setting up a traditional telescope can be quite difficult for newcomers, requiring many steps and expertise to get it right. Not Hiuni. With a touch on your tablet you’ll be seeing a live view of planets, stars, galaxies and with fascinating details and accompanying educational content.

With its built-in sensor-array (GPS, accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope) Hiuni quickly identifies its location and orientation, after which it calibrates its viewpoint in fine detail with our 'Celestial Vision Alignment' system. Upon Hiuni's automated calibration, you can easily select an object from the interactive Sky Map and have Hiuni locate the object and show it in real-time through the Space View.

Our Sky View is a wide angled view of the night. Allowing you to see a greater number of stars and constellations, Sky View acts as your map with the advantage of real-time overlaid information about celestial objects that you can observe. In this mode, you have the option to control the telescope manually through virtual joystick in the app. This view allows you to get a sense of viewable objects around you and their relative positions.

When you find an object you would like to see close, then you can transition to our Space View where you will see up close stars, planets and other celestial objects through the 6-inch optical tube. This view is the actual eye of the telescope, peering into the cosmos. The image sensor we use is color, so Space View will be in stunning true colors.

Our key mission is to nurture future stargazers and aspiring astronomers by providing quality educational content to inspire young and old, new and seasoned explorers. We have designed our smart tablet app to include intuitive and supplemental materials that anyone can learn from.

Rather than a typical eye-piece, which is only suitable for a single viewer at a time, all objects viewed by Hiuni are made available on your tablet. Gather around and share your star adventure with others.

To ensure that everybody has a front and center view, you can share Hiuni's view with smart devices around by simply scanning the QR code. This allows others to join in the experience and inspires curiosity for everybody in your group.

Hiuni allows you to connect your telescope and tablet to either its local ad hoc wireless network while in the field or to an established WIFI at home to control movement and receive live stream views. Each Hiuni comes with its own storage case for easy transportation.

Hiuni simplifies the complicated process of alignment and setup, so you can spend more time exploring and learning.

The mechanics behind this motorized telescope allow it to find and keep an object in view, take into account the current position of the telescope and the location of the selected object. Our internal database catalogs celestial objects based on the telescope’s location and the current time.

To understand the orientation of the telescope, we use a platesolving algorithm that analyzes the picture, detects star patterns, and matches it with the sky database. When both coordinates are known, the difference can be calculated and the motors can be instructed to move accordingly. Hiuni's dual motors take over and use azimuth (left/right) and altitude (up/down) rotations to pivot and keep the object in view.

You can select your object and Hiuni will automatically navigate to an optimal viewing position, or take control with the virtual joystick to position Hiuni. Let the motorization take care of the complex stuff, so you can enjoy stargazing with your friends and family!

Through the app, you can maneuver your way around the cosmos, decipher what is viewable from your location, and choose a celestial object to navigate to and learn about. A single touch and Hiuni takes you there.

Once you've selected a moon, planet, star, cluster, nebula or galaxy, Hiuni's motors will first align its optical tube onto the object and then automatically adjust itself accordingly to compensate for the earth's rotation. The telescope will continually track an object’s trajectory through the night sky.

Cassegrain style telescopes use two mirrors, converging the light and reflecting it twice through the tube. Advantages of Cassegrain include:

Excellent Optics: Combining the best in lenses and mirrors for a versatile telescope with sharp images, superior light collection, wide fields of view, large apertures, long focal lengths, and stunning views of celestial objects.

Compact Size: Hiuni's folded optical path creates a smaller telescope with the same focal length as a refracting telescope.

The light then passes through the primary mirror to the primary image sensor for the best image quality and close up views of objects. This creates the Space View of the telescope which you’ll see on your tablet.

The secondary Sky Map is an outward facing inline 'finderscope' imaging sensor that captures a wide-angle view of the sky for manual exploration using Hiuni's app.

The optical tube is manufactured by Bosma, a leading manufacturer in the space.

The power of a telescope is based on its ability to gather light. With Hiuni’s optical tube’s 6” aperture, it can gather as much light as required for the best views of planets and deep space objects. Under ideal conditions, a 6” aperture provides 300 times useful magnification! Combined with our Deep Light Imaging algorithm, Hiuni provides clear and sharp views of the universe.

Hiuni employs an advanced 1/2 inch, 1280x1024 CMOS with large pixel sizes, high quantum efficiency, and low read noise which is optimized for dark sky imaging. Hiuni's Deep Light Imaging algorithm transforms and merges live images into clear, sharp views of the universe, even revealing the faintest of stars and finest details on celestial objects.

By continuously taking pictures, Hiuni generates 'stacks' of pictures which contain far more information than any single picture possibly can. Additionally, Hiuni must align the stacking of its images due to the rotation of the earth. To compensate for this movement, Hiuni automatically calculates the precise movement to offset by first analyzing the pictures and the relative movements of the stars.

Because of the high magnifying power of telescopes, it can be difficult to target your objects. To solve this issue, we’ve implemented our Celestial Vision Alignment technology that continually matches live image data from our double sensor setup to the built-in star database. This allows Hiuni to keep track of its orientation and make minor adjustments to keep the object visible.

No longer do you need to attach DSLR cameras or expensive modules to your telescope; Hiuni is unique with its own built-in camera to capture stunning astrophotography imagery. The integrated wide-angle camera acts as a finderscope inline with the main optical tube.

Thanks to its motorized auto-adjust functionality, Hiuni goes beyond the ability of static telescopes to take snapshots of the night sky. This will allow you to capture images without image trailing as the Earth rotates and objects move across the sky.

Hiuni's image sensor makes astrophotography easy for novices and accessible for hobbyists with a portable built-in solution. We will offer an API for seasoned professionals who want to use the hardware and push the technology further.

Having experienced the steep learning curve with his son as newbies to astronomy, Jack saw an opportunity to create a more engaging type of stargazing experience. In 2015, he conceived the idea of Hiuni smart telescope and formed a design and innovation team to evolve Hiuni from an idea into a the product you see today. An entrepreneur with a major in computer science, Jack has been in the manufacturing industry for many years, developing and manufacturing products for various industries such as optical products for the medical industry, smart products and others.

With over 16 years of optical design across a variety of products such as biological and stereo microscopes (fixed focused lens and with multiple zooms), finder-scopes (with or without zoom lens), telescopes, CCD camera and LCD projection light valves and more. Chunmei leads the design and development of our optical systems. Currently a professor at Suzhou University’s School of Optoelectronic Information Science and Engineering (OISE), she has been granted number of patents and released over 15 research papers within the optical engineering field.

Born from stardust, Andrew has always had a fascination with the stars, universe and all the mysteries that it holds. When Jack presented his vision for Hiuni, it was an exciting idea which inspired new concepts for the future of stargazing. Andrew leads the continual development and refinement of the user experience and hardware design for Hiuni. He brings over 15+ years global industrial design experience from a wide variety of products and industries and together with his passion, create the best product innovations possible.

With 12 years of work experience as a software developer for a variety of tech-based products, Liu is responsible for the design of the software system framework, development of our self-calibration, ‘go to’ functionality and the integration of the required software modules. As well as working closely with hardware development team to implement, test and optimise the functionality with the Hiuni hardware.

With his broad design and engineering experience from home consumer goods, automotive R&D and power tool industries, Kevin leads the engineering and development team for Hiuni. Ensuring that our telescope is reliable, accurate and of the highest quality. Graduating from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics with a Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering, he has since gained over 17 years of product development experience from design all the way through to production.

Beach is an Idea Development, Design and Technology Lab dedicated to rethinking and redefining what is possible. Our multi-national team of designers, engineers, builders and dreamers have a passion for exploring and developing new ideas born from the interplay between technology and creativity. We love the unknown and thrive at the challenge to bring innovative technology and design to the market.

With over a decade of optoelectronic expertise and experience, Bosma is one of the leaders in the design and manufacturing of optical products ranging from telescopes, microscopes and IOT devices and more. With R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, and the Silicon Valley, Bosma is a trusted partner for government institutions, and consumer electronics and technology companies internationally.

Risks and challenges

As is the process with bringing any new tech product to market, there is a possibility of unforeseen issues that will appear during the development and manufacturing process. We are focused on bringing together all the moving parts for accuracy, durability and reliability.
Optimization of the optics and imaging system to provide consistent clarity and quality will be crucial to bringing the highest quality product to our backers.
Additionally, the development of stable software, backend and App front end systems is important to the overall operation of the telescope.
In order to mitigate risks, our team is prioritizing consistency of operations under a range of different environmental conditions to bring an overall quality telescope that we would want as customers and telescope enthusiasts.